Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution 2.1 - March 1999
Psychosocial Dynamics of the Armed Conflict in Colombia
To my beloved father, victim of violence.
Colombia is a country of contradictions. Hard working and business-minded, Colombians can be described as intelligent, and resourceful but also as individualistic, rugged and intense. The country is suffering a destructive protracted social conflict that every day weakens further its institutions(1) preventing a much-needed widespread economic development. Violence in Colombia is a very old pattern of interaction between social actors. It can be traced to the nineteen century. It also includes periods of political cleansing as the period between 1948-1959 in which ten years of political confrontation left 300,000 civilians dead and countless widows and orphans.
Violence is permanent in the confrontation between the guerrilla, the government, the mob and paramilitaries. This undeclared civil war has taken the life of 70,000 people and displaced 600,000 in 40 years of war.(2) But these are just the direct victims of the conflict. Indirectly, the conflict has exacerbated the widespread violence of every day life in Colombia: 30,000 people or so are murdered each year in the streets of the principal cities of the country. In 1997, Cali -the second biggest city of the country- recorded 90 murders per 100,000 people; Bogota, the capital, recorded 49 murders per 100,000. These figures outrun even Caracas's 48, Rio de Janeiro's 34, Mexico City' s 12 and Chicago's 30. Some minor cities do far worse. (3)
The ability of the Colombian State to provide for the well being and the security of its citizens has been deteriorating dramatically during the last twenty years. Today, violence in general is a far-reaching illness in Colombia.
The oldest Colombian guerrilla movement, the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) (4), has its roots in the bloody civil war of the 1950's. During the 1960's the communism influence of the Cuban revolution and the cold war created the ideological background for other insurgency groups. By the 1980's the absence of state control over large parts of the country and the real challenge presented by over half a dozen guerrillas were reason enough to initiate a peace process that ended in 1985 in the spectacular failure known as the tragedy of the Palace of justice. A second round of negotiations held between 1989-90 was more successful. The M-19, one of the most controversial and internationally connected guerrilla groups laid down their arms and transformed themselves into a political party. Although rounds of direct negotiations between the Government and representatives of the largest guerrilla groups took place after the first successful process, in 1992 negotiations stalled. The Colombian government insisted on its view of the insurgencies as a domestic issue and it did not want international recognition extended to the guerrillas. The lack of a third party was the most important obstacle of this process.
During the five years that followed 1992 the war escalated both in scope and cruelty. By 1997, citizen-based initiatives like the "vote for peace" and the Commission of National Commission for Conciliation (CCN) provided the parties with a much needed channel of communication and a new peace process was initiated with the Viana accord and, more recently with the Maintz meeting between representatives of the government, the civil society and the second-largest guerrilla movement, the National Liberation Army (ELN) (5). This has facilitated unilateral initiatives such as the meeting between the newly elected president Andres Pastrana and the directives of the largest guerrilla, FARC.
After many years of war a solution to the armed conflict is the biggest challenge facing the new government and the entire Colombian society. The development of a citizen-based peace process was a good way to start. It has created a peace constituency and the parties will be accountable to it.(6) These initiatives filled a very important gap between the parties, avoiding one of the most important "design flaws" that doomed some past peace processes. The long-term success of this process involves bringing together a variety of conceptual and organizational elements in a bold strategy that addresses not only the well identified objective conditions of the conflict but also factors related to the perceptions of the parties, their values, goals and modes of interaction. The purpose of this work is to highlight these factors that have been underlying on the historical patterns of the Colombian conflict and to propose a prescriptive approach that addresses them.
Methodology
The first chapter of this paper is the product of an historical research of the three armed conflict of the twentieth century in Colombia:
Some of the texts used for this historical research were in English (Bergquist, 1978; Braun, 1985; Srong, S, 1994) but most of them were originally in Spanish (Lara, 1982; Pardo, 1996; Palacios, 1996; Garcia, 1992). Due to their weight in the actual peace process in Colombia, three documents were translated and included in the appendix of this paper. They are the "Inform of the peace exploratory commission" (Rios & Pena, 1997) and the two pacts known as The Viana pact (February 1998) and the Maitz accord (July 1998).
The second chapter is dedicated to the analysis of the socio-psychological patterns of the interaction between the parties using three main sources. The first one is a research of the bibliography available in the fields of conflict resolution and peace studies. The second source used were quotes of different actors of the conflict taken from several Colombian newspapers, especially "El Tiempo". The last source were interviews conducted during 1998 both inside and outside of Colombia with some actors in the two institutional parties of the conflict: guerrilla and government. Although these interviews constitute an additional source of information for the analysis of the attitudes, the perceptions and interactions of the parties, this paper is not a qualitative research of the information gathered during the interviews.
The third chapter is a prescription of some of the solutions that might treat the underlying problems of the parties' perceptions and attitudes as well as the way that they react and interact with each other. These interventions are the product of many years of research and practice of scholars and practitioners of the conflict resolution and peace studies fields. They do not pretend to be panaceas. They are long-term commitments that require political and economical support but overall patience and professionalism.
"Those who do not know history are predestined to repeat it."
The first part of this paper will be dedicated to the study and analysis of the historic patterns of violence in Colombia. The purpose is to provide the reader with the essential historical background about violence in Colombia in this century. Although it does not pretend to be a complete historical analysis, the accounts were as detailed as possible, given the limits and purpose of this work.
The history of the last century in Colombia is deeply connected with the levels of violence developed during the last decade. Recurrent patterns of repression, political assassinations and institutional chaos are historically correlated. The parties of the actual conflict inherited perceptions, values and interaction patterns from the civil wars that preceded them.
Intolerance in the interaction is one of the main patterns of Colombia's society. Pluralism is still a value to be developed. Extremists deploy silent but brutally effective campaigns against anyone that dares to think different to them. In the past, many peace efforts and their protagonists have found themselves against a wall of intolerance, and the result has been a continuing, devastating state of war without winners and losers, only death, tears and destruction.
Colombia in the Nineteenth Century
Since the end of the independence wars (1821), Colombia has been rife with civil war and internal unrest. The "Great Colombia", the dream of the 'libertator' Simon Bolivar, included what is today Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. Secessionism and political ambitions soon dismembered this union.
The first controversies between federalist and centralist evolved in "caudillos" (strongmen) wars between Liberals and Conservatives, political parties founded in the mid-nineteenth century. In the last three decades of that century, Colombia had a federal Constitution, abolished slavery, separated the roles of the State and the Church and was dominated by a Creole adaptation of "laissez-fare, laissez-passer" politics inherited from the classic Manchester school. The period is historically known as the 'Radical Liberal' republic. The effect of this federalist system was a central government that was too weak to control the armies of strongmen from the province. As a reaction to the fragility of the federal government, a conservative political movement (called "the regeneration") led by Rafael Nunez advocated the centralization of the political system among other political reforms. The Conservatives of the regeneration took power in 1885.
By the end of the nineteen century the Conservatives maintained their power by "systematically repressing dissent through arbitrary press decrees and excluding the Liberal party from government through electoral abuses and the unrestrained use of the extraordinary faculties granted to the executive" (7).
Although composed of different actors coming from all levels of society, the conservative and liberal parties represented different interests of the society. In addition to a centralized political system, the conservative party protected the status-quo, traditional values, close relations between the church and the state, the centralization of government, the creation of a central bank, and taxing exports as an important source of income for the state revenue. Its members were mainly landowners and rich patriarchs that dominated much of the countryside, aided by the church. On the other hand, the liberal party defended the separation of powers, liberty of commerce, non-interventionism, decentralization of government and banned taxation of exports. Liberals were mainly merchants and entrepreneurs with high interest in the coffee and tobacco export business.
During the last decade of the nineteen-century, the ruling party (conservatives) through fraudulent elections limited access to power for the liberal party. This situation was worsened by the economic and the fiscal crisis that came with the falling of the coffee prices in the international market, which affected mainly the interest of the liberals.
"Throughout the regeneration attempts at coalition between upper-class factions through compromise and reform were unsuccessful. Deepening divisions within the upper class and the strident public controversy helped to undermine the authority and consensus enjoyed by Nunez at the start of the regeneration. The coffee crisis combined with the political crisis left unresolved throughout the regeneration to cripple government effectiveness while simultaneously augmenting unrest around the country, especially in the coffee zones"(8)
In 1899 a civil war broke between the liberal rebels and the conservative government.
The Civil War of 1900
The first months of the war were not different from the countless short conflicts of the nineteen-century. This phase is known as the gentlemen's war. But this was about to end after the first months: the liberals were outgunned and outnumbered and the course of events favored the government forces. Liberal armies were defeated at several battles in Antioquia, and Cundinamarca; but it was the battle of Palonegro in the Santander's coffee region that proved to be the turning point of the war and the bloodiest battle ever fought on Colombian soil. After twelve days of fighting the liberal army retreated. For the rest of the more than two years of the war, the rebel's strategy rested mainly on guerrilla warfare. The 'gentlemen's' war was over. From that moment on the initiative of the war was less in the hands of 'political' patriarchs like Rafael Uribe or president Jose Manuel Marroquin and more in those of mid-level ruthless leaders like the liberal guerrilla fighter Cesareo Pulido and the Minister of War, Aristide Fernandez.
Major foci of guerrilla activity were in coffee zones of the states of Santander and Cundinamarca, in the provinces of Sumapaz and Tequendama. Government 'victories' in these areas turned on to be chimerical. After a while, the guerrillas would regroup. In their desperation military commanders resorted to mass arrests. In a letter to the Minister of war, a government military commander described the prisoners of a massive raid:
"Both the men and the women are accomplices and auxiliaries of bandits who they hide in their houses; as a result I am sending all of them to Bogota believing that the men should be sent as recruits to the coast and the women punished as Your Excellency sees fit, since they are very bad breed." (9)
A few of the guerrilla leaders were acquainted with the "Codigo de Maceo", a code that covered all the aspect of the guerrilla warfare. The "Codigo de Maceo" was one of the products of the Cuban independence war at the end of the XIX century. The cruelty of the guerrilla incursions could only be matched by the heavy measures taken by the government forces against the civil population. This situation created a painful stalemate. Only after the capitulation in 1903 of Rafael Uribe, the political leader of the liberals with the signing of the treaty of Neerlandia did the war end.
The civil war lasted two and a half years; thus historians named it the "1,000 days war". The government forces were victorious but their political position was weak both internally and abroad.
The Independence of Panama
At the beginning of the century, Colombia was in the middle of controversy due to the United States' strong commitment to build an inter-oceanic channel in Panama, then part of Colombia. This project was perceived as vital for American interests worldwide. The Colombian Senate rejected a treaty with the American government containing conditions that from the Colombian Senate point of view "compromised Colombia's sovereignty". By the end of the civil war in Colombia, a small liberal army remained rebellious in Panama. The president of the United States decided to induce and support a secessionist movement that ended in the independence of Panama.
"The loss of Panama was partly a consequence of the War of the Thousand Days, for the war had gravely weakened and complicated the Colombians' negotiating position and stimulated separatist sentiments" (10) Arguably, the secession of Panama was the highest cost paid by Colombia as a result of the 1,000 days war.
The horrors of the civil war were deeply imprinted in the minds of a generation of Colombians. During the first half of the twentieth century a more conciliatory style of doing politics came to be known as "coexistence".
"The liberal and conservative leaders called their form of rule 'coexistence', the politics of civility. In the term they revealed their commitment to a distinct public life and to peace… Their aim was to coexist, to live together in a realm of power they felt ideally suited to inhabit." (11)
Coexistence called then for the sharing of power between the two elites that fought the civil war: conservatives and liberals. This was possible largely thanks to the government of Rafael Reyes (1904-1909). Reyes's inclusion of liberals in his government institutionalized the practice. Moreover, minority representation in the legislative bodies was possible after the principle was introduced in the national constitution as an amendment in 1905. This amendment granted liberals a third of the seats of the legislative bodies. Reyes program of "national concord" created a period of peace that lasted for more than forty years.
The Conservative Hegemony (1904-1930)
Under the conservative governments of Jose Vicente Concha, Marco Fidel Suarez, Pedro Nel Ospina and Miguel Abadia Mendez the new breed of politicians had an opportunity to exercise power. But the lesson about the need to 'live together' was learned only in part. Liberals and conservatives coexisted among them, but showed chronic despise for the 'ignorant masses' to be guided by the enlightened elite. These politicians saw themselves as a benevolent ruler class with superior education and moral values. They saw the 'pueblo' more as plebs than as populus, more as laborers than as the soul of the nation. (12)
Therefore, theoretical convictions of 'service' held by coexisting politicians included self-rightness convictions and morally exclusive thinking. This patronizing, dis-empowering point of view was most shockingly clear in the personality of Laureano Gomez, a conservative leader. On June 8, 1928, in an address to the Bogota's elite at the Municipal Theater, Gomez said that Colombia had little chance of ever becoming a civilized nation. He maintained that "the racial mixture of fanatical Spaniards, savage Indians, and primitive Negroes combined with climatic and geographic handicaps, had proven fatal for Colombia".(13)
Meanwhile, Colombia's integration into the world market was slow but steady economic growth allowed the country to prosper. With prosperity came confrontation not at the political but at a social level. The labor movement was growing in the 1920's, especially in the North coast and Antioquia. The 'peaceful' political environment was facing steady levels of protest from newborn labor unions.
The most remembered confrontation took place in 1928, between the government forces and banana workers in the plantations of American owned 'United Fruit Company' in the state of Magdalena. The company owned the local fruit plantation and was the most powerful actor of the region. When workers met to protest the company's policies, police opened fire killing hundreds of workers. This is known as "the banana massacre" and was a scandal of great proportions for the conservative government. Several young liberal politicians made the incident their 'launch platform' to national notoriety, especially Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, then running for Congress, who expressed his criticism against the government. From now on, and for twenty years, the public life of Gaitan and the destiny of Colombia were going to walk side by side.
The Liberal Hegemony (1930 -1944)
In 1930, confronting a divided conservative party, the liberal candidate Enrique Olaya, won the presidential election. This was the first liberal government since 1885. Olaya's government and the two progressive liberal governments that followed introduced economic and political reforms. These reforms included the participation of labor leaders in government, the opening of the economy and the initiation of public works around the country.
The coexistence was at its height. Jorge Eliecer Gaitan was molded in the coexistence school and was very much part of its tradition. This brilliant orator, criminal lawyer and liberal politician became a Congressman in 1931 and helped to design the most important reform of the Constitution.
Gaitan was part of the left wing of the liberal party. His thesis, "The socialist ideas in Colombia" condensed his political ideals. From this work, the historian Herbert Braun concludes:
"He [Gaitan] saw social conflict through the eyes of a positivist. His notion of conflict was not one of two antagonistic forces coming together in struggle. Quite the contrary, he saw conflict as emerging from two separating forces. In Gaitan's view of strife in Colombia, the capitalist had turned his back on the worker, leaving him with arms stretched out, looking abjectly in the direction of the departed protector. It was in the subsequent absence of reciprocity and cooperation that a conflict between the capitalist and the worker ensued. Gaitan's inclination was to bring the parts together to search for harmony rather than to pit them against each other" (14)
Gaitan's meritocracy ideals opposed all hierarchies that did not rest on hard work. During the thirties the young Gaitan was supported and nurtured by Liberal traditions and directives but soon, his raise in popularity gained him enemies within and outside the Liberal party. He was never accepted into the Gun Club, the social club of Bogota. He could move among the political elite, but could not be accepted completely as one of them. (15)
By the mid-forties Gaitan was much more confrontational, defiant and aggressive. His new style was not acceptable for coexistence traditions. Moreover, for them it was a confirmation of the lack of class and chivalry of the popular leader. On the other hand, Gaitan's political force in the liberal party grew due in part to his charismatic personality, powerful oratory, brilliant intellect and organizational skills but mainly because he was the only politician that could claim being a 'son of the pueblo'. Many of his followers were fanatic promoted him aggressively in the streets of the cities and towns of the country, creating a very tense political environment.
Many conservative and liberal traditional leaders view these campaigns as a direct threat against them and the status quo of the coexistence. This perception triggered a chain reaction that submerged Colombia in another partisan civil war.
The liberal party went into the 1946 presidential elections divided in two candidates: Jorge E. Gaitan and Gabriel Turbay. The conservative candidate, Mariano Ospina, defeated them. The liberal hegemony of sixteen years ended. Many liberal politicians saw in Gaitan's ambitions the destruction of the liberal party .In 1947 on the national congressional election; Gaitan's victory over the other factions of the liberal party left him elected unique chief of the liberal party. He won the election with his own structure and did not control the official machinery of the traditional liberal party. By 1948 it was clear for everyone that Gaitan had enough political power to become president in the next presidential elections of 1950.
Feeling their status in danger, the convivialistas openly displayed their anger against Gaitan. They felt that Gaitan was pursuing a campaign of hatred between races and social classes.(16) The Conservative government also feared that their victory in the 1946 elections was going to be temporary in the hands of such a powerful liberal leader.
Gaitan was assassinated on April 9 1,948 by a hit man who approached him outside his office and shoot him three times in the back. Analyzed in the political context of the moment and after forty years have passed, Gaitan's assassination is somehow easier to understand. But for his contemporaries and especially for the poorest people of the country who had all their hopes invested in the popular leader, this was a great, unexplainable tragedy. Their reaction was the explosion of uncontrolled violence that drowned Bogota and the country in fear and blood. The people of Bogota lynched Gaitan's assassin, then looted and destroyed the city for two days. This is known as "El Bogotazo". During the ten years that followed 300.000 people -mostly civilians- died in the political cleansing of the countryside.
Arguably, the assassination of Gaitan is for Colombia the most important single event of the century, and its consequences are very much part of the actual confrontation. It was a real event of relative deprivation for the Colombian people. That day the country witnessed the rupture of the social fabric and the beginning of a long period of political frustration that drowned the country in blood.
"The Violence" (1946-1959)
The Assassination of Gaitan was followed by a violent rage that destroyed Bogota and cornered the conservative government of Ospina. A group of Gaitanistas went to the palace with the body of the killer and remained in front of the palace for hours. Inside, the president was entrenched and ready to fight. The Pan-American conference was taking place in the city. Frightened representatives of countries around the world remained in their Hotels. On his way to meet Gaitan that afternoon of April 9 1,948 was a 22-year old law student from Cuba. His name is Fidel Castro. He was among the witnesses of the destruction and pillages that destroyed downtown Bogota. (17)
No connection with the traditional parties or with the government has ever been established in the death of Jorge E. Gaitan. Officially, the gunman acted alone and all other hypotheses have remained largely unproven. The perception of many Gaitanistas was very different. For them, and in the future for everyone leftist in Colombia (including the guerrilla group), Gaitan was the real leader of the people assassinated by the Colombian economic and political elite.
Following Gaitan's assassination the weakened conservative government, trying to recover political and armed control over the country took desperate measures of repression that worsened even further the situation:
"In November Ospina closed the Congress. Unopposed, Laureano Gomez reached the presidency. The conservatives taking advantage of the moment and seeking power, influence and resources that were in the hands of the liberals. In Gomez first year in office, 50.000 lost their lives to La Violence. In 1952, adherents of the Conservative Party burned the buildings that housed 'El Tiempo' and 'El Espectador' [liberal newspapers]. The Liberal Party ceased to function. Members of the liberal and Gaitanista rank and file became guerrillas. Democracy headed for the hills, not to return to the city until three decades later. It was war without beginning and almost without end. It had no caudillos, battles, ideals or glory." (18)
By 1950, the country was again deeply polarized between governing conservatives and rebels liberals. History repeated itself. A similar pattern of repression and political intolerance that fifty years before ignited civil war was again the main cause of an even worst civil confrontation that killed 300,000 people in the 1940's and 1950's. Once again, the defenseless civilian population was the main target of the political cleansing in the hand of ruthless liberal and conservative middlemen called 'birds'.
Laureano Gomez, the politician that sharply called for a divided, hierarchical society in which the 'pueblo' would have little or no influence in public life, found in The Violence the exalted values that he missed in day-to-day politics. In its excess and random killing, he no doubt saw his own beliefs confirmed: Colombia would indeed never become a civilized society. His self-fulfilling prophecy was finally completed.
According to the contemporary analyst Monsignor German Guzman Campos, the causes of the violence were clear in 1949 presidential campaign:
"a) Stabilization of the conservative group in power, with the violent exclusion of the liberal contender;
b) Use of politics in a campaign of persecution, without a doubt planned from the higher spheres of the government;
c) Declaration of civil resistance by the liberal Party, than soon would be translated into armed groups."
The resentment of a new breed of Colombians was being created in the midst of the dirty war. Most of the guerrilla leaders of the following decades will be direct or indirect descendents of the Gaitanista's liberals. Many of them recall as their childhood's most vivid memory the moment they heard the cry: "Gaitan was killed!" The following is part of an interview with Ivan Marino Ospina, a guerrilla leader of the M-19:
"The day Gaitan was killed, I was gathering guavas in Tulua. The bullets started to fly. Liberals and conservatives started to shoot each other…My uncle; Juan Martin talked to me a lot about him [Gaitan]. He was my idol. When he was killed I was very sad. But I was sadder when I saw my father running to the forest to hide his horse and cart so that it wouldn't be destroyed by the liberals ... The conservative 'pajaros' killed three of my uncles: Daniel, Juan and Antonio Marin. Daniel was assassinated with rifle and machete. He was killed in front of his eleven children."(19)
With the exception of the initial violent reaction to Gaitan's assassination, which was called "The Bogotazo", Bogota and other capital cities were not touched by the violence as it remained very much in the countryside and small towns of Tolima, Huila, Valle, Antioquia and Santander. In the city the rural strife was accepted as a sociological phenomenon: The Violence was something that just happened and was not under anyone's control. The name of The Violence was accepted as a way to objectify it.
The National Front
On June 13, 1953 General Gustavo Rojas took power deposing the conservative government in a military coup. Liberals -and some conservatives- justified the coup as a necessity for the country in that moment of history. Rojas initiated a campaign of peace and gave a general, unconditional amnesty to the liberal guerrillas as well as to the conservative paramilitaries. Some of the strongmen deposed their weapons to a government that promised protection to their lives and reinsertion to civil life. But in 1954 an accidental confrontation between the army and peasants restarted the violence. In 1957 a conspiracy of the traditional parties and a group of army officials deposed General Rojas. He was replaced by an army board of five generals that acted as temporary government with the intention to return power to a civil government. This situation added to the immense cost in lives and resources of The Violence and created the right environment for a political pact between the parties. This pact is known as "The national front".
Alberto Lleras and Laureano Gomez, heads of the liberal and conservative parties, once sworn enemies, met in Benidorm (Spain) to create a political pact that was designed to last sixteen years - four governments periods. During this time, the parties would alternate power and divide the bureaucratic quota between them. Alberto Lleras was going to be the first president of the front. He offered also a general amnesty to the liberal guerrillas. This time the amnesty was not very successful. The fear to reprisals and in some cases the ideological convictions of guerrilla leaders prevented them to accept the amnesty offered by the government. By the second presidential term of the national front (this time the turn was for conservative Guillermo Valencia) the guerrillas were reactivated backed by the communism party.
This time the inspiration was not the liberal or conservative traditional ideology, but the triumphs of Fidel Castro and his guerrilla fighters in the mountains of Cuba. These guerrillas transformed the party strife into a 'class struggle' and established themselves in several regions of the country: Marquetalia in the south of the state of Tolima; El Pato and Guayabero between Huila and Caqueta; and Riochiquito in the Cauca. The guerrillas organized the population politically and socially, developed an agrarian movement, and a self-defense system.
Worried about the turn of events in Cuba, president Valencia declared war on the so-called 'independent republics'. An American plan called LASO (Latin America Security Operation) backed the action in Marquetalia and successfully recovered the government's control of the zone but failed to kill or capture the self-defense peasant guerrillas. They moved to Riochiquito and created the first organized guerrilla movement of Marxist-Leninist orientation: The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP), with a peasant orientation. Soon after, the National Liberation Army (ELN) a guerrilla movement inspired by the Cuban model and with more intellectuals in its ranks started operations. Today, these armies are the largest and strongest guerrillas in Colombia.
During the sixties, the guerrilla movements were fed with many young students moved by the example and ideals of the Cuban revolution. The most famous figure to join the ranks of the ELN was Camilo Torres, a young priest and teacher of sociology in the National University. After losing his ecclesiastic investiture, he announced his decision to join the guerrillas with a text that he called "Proclamation to the Colombians". In it he said that he was willing to sacrifice himself so that the future generations could have "education, shelter, food, clothing and, above all, DIGNITY." He died in his first battle against the government forces.
The third guerrilla movement with its roots in the sixties is the EPL (Popular Liberation Army). The EPL had influence in the North coast, where other guerrillas were not present at the time. As the ELN, the EPL was inspired by the "foci" theory developed by Ernesto 'Che' Guevara in his book "The Guerrilla War". This was the second time that a Cuban guerrilla handbook had inspired Colombians. The first one was the "Codigo de Maceo" during the war of the 1,000 days at the beginning of the century.
It is important to remember the different origins of the guerrilla movements. It would be improper to forget how different they are. One started as a peasant' self-defense movement (FARC-EP) very connected with the communism party; and therefore its inspiration is Marxist-Leninist. The ELN is more urban inspired by the Cuban experience.
Meanwhile, the third government of the national front that of the liberal Carlos Lleras Restrepo was successful stabilizing the economy and uniting the liberal party. He was widely respected for his honesty and commitment to the common good. But political apathy was growing steadily due to the pre-arranged results. Soon, new political movements dissidents from the traditional parties (like the liberal MRL) or completely independent from the parties (like the ANAPO) tried to lure these masses into their ranks.
The 1970's
The last term of the national front was reserved for the conservative official candidate, in this case Misael Pastrana. But the ANAPO (Popular National Alliance), the political movement created by the ex-dictator General Rojas in the sixties was gaining support from the left and many liberals. In 1966 the ANAPO candidate received a high vote. For the 1970 presidential run, Rojas himself presented his candidacy for the ANAPO and received the adhesion of many of the left forces that saw in him an opposition alternative to the liberal-conservative domination of political space. The preliminary results of the voting in April 19 1970 favored him. The broadcasting of the counting was suspended at night. In the morning, the Conservative candidate won the election by a close margin (40,000 votes). The official explanation was that while the first results in the cities gave Rojas a high voting, in the countryside the official machinery worked hard to elect Pastrana.
In the ranks of the ANAPO and the other movements behind Rojas the perception was that of an electoral fraud. That day a new guerrilla movement was born. They called themselves M-19 (short for Movement 19 of April) in remembrance of the alleged electoral fraud. The M-19 was the most ideological and urban guerrilla in Colombia. In January of 1974 the group made its entrance to the national life with a publicity stunt in the capital's newspapers, followed by the stealing of the sword used by the independence hero Simon Bolivar, a national treasure. In 1978, the group stole more than five thousand arms from a military post in Bogota. The government reacted with the capture of most of the leaders of the movement.
During the 70's the guerrillas were weakened by the opening of new channels of social communication, like the labor and the students' movements. These channels gave many an opportunity to voice their grievances and gain participation in the national scenario. But these movements and their members were easy target for the repressive dirty war that started by the end of the decade. Pressure was applied against anything that looked 'dissident'.
The fact that 'traditional' guerrillas survived and smaller 'second generation' guerrillas were born after 1978 (Quintin Lame, Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, Patria Libre, Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores) can be explained with the closing of spaces that were open for opposition forces and the following increase of their recruiting capacity.(20)
In 1980, the M-19's careful planning and implementation of a massive kidnapping operation of diplomats in the Dominican Republic Embassy was a hard hit to the government. The world press covered extensively the long negotiations that followed. After two months, the kidnappers fled to Cuba with a ransom. By 1981 the M-19 was trying to use these resources and the past experience of some of their leaders (21) to create a third countryside guerrilla.
In 1982 the conservative candidate Belisario Betancourt was elected president of Colombia. His presidential campaign was based on a "peace process" platform that included general amnesty for political prisoners. The expectation and momentum that his proposal gained in the Colombian society was one of the main forces behind his election. President Betancourt was sincerely committed to the peace process. He decided to propose to the guerrilla an imaginative and daring process of peace that included a truce and the demobilization of the insurgency. Their reactions varied. While the ELN plainly rejected the process; the M-19, EPL and other smaller movements accepted it. The FARC took an intermediate path: they accepted the peace talks but acted cautiously.
First Peace Process with the M-19, EPL and Quintin Lame
The M-19 and EPL embraced with enthusiasm Betancourt's peace process. They tried but failed in creating a solid political base. An important obstacle was the permanent attacks and killing of the group's members. Intolerant right-wing sectors of the country decided to kill one by one the demobilized leaders of the groups. These sectors of society considered the peace process a sign of 'weakness' and were determined to continue a dirty war against their enemies. They succeeded. The M-19 declared the truce broken and went back to clandestine operations having lost many of their leaders and feeling deeply betrayed. The group planned its following action as a "judgment" to the president for his failure to deliver on his promises of peace. In November 6, 1985 a heavily armed M-19 commando stormed into the Supreme Court Palace. The M-19 was making headlines in the international news again with a daring action and the Colombian Supreme Court in their hands. The army planned and executed a frontal attack on the palace. The magistrates of the Supreme Court and many other hostages were killed along with the guerrilla commandos. The building was destroyed by fire.
First Peace Process with FARC: The "Uribe" pact.
The largest guerrilla army in Colombia (FARC) accepted Betancourt's peace process and signed a "cease fire" pact in the town of La Uribe, their center of operations in the state of Meta. They also created a "political wing" called, the Patriotic Union that successfully earned 4% of the national vote in 1986. But the same campaign of extermination suffered by the leaders of the M-19 was applied against the political leaders of the Patriotic Union. In six years 2,000 members of the new party were killed and the party disappeared from the political arena.
When President Virgilio Barco was elected in 1986, the initial part of Betancourt's peace process was over. The events of the 'Justice Palace' were a painful reminder of the risk of any peace process.
Between 1986 and 1988, the guerrilla movements decided to create the 'National Guerrilla Coordinator - Simon Bolivar' (22) and to take as much political and military advantage as possible from the ambiguities of the "Uribe" pacts. Indeed, the guerrilla benefited tactically.
In 1985, the guerrillas had influence over 173 towns. By 1995 this influence had grown to 622 towns especially in the frontier-like regions of the East Plains. The ELN has grown from 4 fronts at the beginning of the decade to some 30 fronts today. They have blown thousands of times the pipeline that connects the oil fields of the East with the North coast crossing their area of influence in Santander, arguing that the international companies should not be allowed to 'steal' Colombia's oil. The FARC-EP increased also their fronts.
Finally the "Uribe" truce was going to be lost among mutual recriminations. On June 16, 1987 26 soldiers died in a FARC ambush in Puerto Rico (Caqueta), the president declared the truce broken in that region and made the commitment that any other attacks in other regions were going to be considered a regional declaration of war. (23) By 1989 the war was already at its peak and the "Uribe" pact was a thing of the past for the FARC. The first chapter of the peace negotiations in Colombia was over.
Second Peace Process with the M-19, EPL and Quintin Lame
By 1989, the catastrophic experiences of the first peace process, the decimation of their leaders and the Supreme Court Palace massacre, and hard evidence of the failure of the communism model in the Soviet Union, convinced the M-19, the PRT, Quintin Lame and part of the EPL about the need to demobilize their movements.
This new effort was initiated with yet another reminder of the M-19's tendency towards showmanship. On May 29, 1988 Alvaro Gomez, the son of Laureano Gomez (the right wing conservative president that was part of the official repression during the violence), and himself a very prominent political figure and presidential candidate, was kidnapped in the streets of Bogota. The idea was to bring the government to the negotiation table. At this stage, the government said that it was not going to participate forced by the kidnapping. But other social forces, represented mainly by Gomez political movement and the clergy were interested both in Gomez' liberation and in the M-19 proposal of a multi-party negotiation. The first meeting was held on June 15 in Panama and the second on July 29 in Usaquen. A Commission was established and the M-19 presented a peace plan that included:
This time private sectors of the society (the church among them) acted independently from the government and had the initiative in the design and implementation of a peace plan with the guerrilla. Criticized by sectors of the public opinion, president Barco presented an official peace plan that was named "peace initiative". The guerrillas perceived it more as an ultimatum than a peace proposal and rejected it. But the process designed by the independent commission continued and in December 16 1988 president Barco announces the initiation of direct dialogues with the M-19.(24)
The first "work table" was installed in April 3 1989 with the participation of representatives from the political forces (liberal, social- conservative, Patriotic Union) and the church. Later the U.P. will walk away as a way to protest the assassination of one of their leaders. The M-19 proposed negotiations in three levels: constitutional and electoral, justice and public order and socioeconomic.(25) The government considered that the purpose of the negotiation was the demobilization and incorporation of the movement and was not interested in the other themes. It was considered that the Constitutional reform that was taking place in Congress was enough. The government argued that the M-19 could talk to the political forces in the Congress as a way to introduce into the reform the group's proposals but that the government could not negotiate them at the table.
Meanwhile, the peace process was being targeted. Afranio Parra, a leader of the M-19 was assassinated in April 5. Another M-19 political activist was assassinated in June and three others in September. These actions had the precise intention to disrupt the process trying to provoke the M-19's reaction. The group's maturity and tactical understanding of the situation avoided a reaction to these killings.
In October 5th 1989, 227 delegates of the M-19 leave their arms and create a party called "Democratic Alliance - M-19" (26). In the first elections, the M-19 reached more than 10% of the voting. For a moment, the country saw in this process a light at the end of the tunnel. The M-19's decision was so strong that it prevailed even when the constitutional reform failed to pass in Congress. With the failure of the reform, the M-19 could have decided to go back to the war as the main part of the agreement was backed by the proposed constitutional reform. They decided to stay as a political party. Then, the M-19's presidential candidate Carlos Pizarro Leongomez was assassinated in a commercial plane while it was on flight. The M-19 continued and is today an important political movement in the national arena.
The peace process with the M-19 had several important consequences: the first was the peace processes with other 'second generation' insurgency groups that ended in the demobilization of the MAQL (Quintin Lame), the PRT (Revolutionary Party of the Workers) and most of the EPL. The second was the creation of a favorable environment for a Constitutional reform in 1991 that used the non-orthodox mechanism of a 'national assembly' instead of the Congress. Finally, the process acted as seed for the initiation of peace talks between representatives of the government and the CGSM (Guerrilla Coordinator Simon Bolivar) representing the FARC and, for the first time in their history, the ELN.
This peace process proved the importance of citizen based initiatives acting as facilitators of the communication between the parties. The need of a third party was not recognized the peace processes with the CGSM.
The 1990's
The presidential campaign of 1989 was the bloodiest in Colombian history. Several candidates were assassinated among them the U.P. presidential candidate Bernardo Ossa and the newly demobilized M-19 guerrilla leader Carlos Pizarro Leongomez. But it was the assassination of Luis Carlos Galan, a charismatic liberal leader with strong middle class support that changed the history of the campaign. After many years dissenting from the Liberal Party, Galan returned to its ranks to be proclaimed its official candidate. His past firm statements and acts against the drug cartels (especially against Pablo Escobar) and the fact that he was leading in the polls made him the most threatened -and protected- man in the country. In September 1989 he was assassinated in Soacha, a small town near the capital. Cesar Gaviria, the director of Galan's presidential campaign, took his place in the race and won the 1990 elections.
After his election, Gaviria had peace initiatives that included not only the insurgency but also other violent actors such as the drug-lords. In 1991 the government was fighting two wars: one against the insurgency, another against the Medellin drug Cartel. Serious efforts to negotiate with these two parties were made by the government. Several rounds of direct conversations were held between the government and the guerrilla representatives between 1990 and 1992. These are known as the Caracas and the Tlaxcala rounds.
Dialogues in Caracas and Tlaxcala
President Gaviria's first months in power were characterized by the escalation of the war. The guerrilla intensified their attack and the government planned and executed an assault against the FARC central command: Casa Verde in La Uribe. The purpose of the operation was to capture the directives of the largest guerrilla in Colombia. It failed. The next day a communication of the FARC to the press said that the guerrilla "assumes that the government is canceling all the possibilities of a negotiated solution and that therefore it must assume the responsibilities."(27)
This stalemate was broken only months later when the guerrilla returned 16 prisoners. The government considered it a sign of good will and the possibility of direct conversations was open. This time, all the remaining parties were going to be present at the negotiation table. The CGSB representing FARC, ELN and the dissidence of the EPL and representatives of the government (Secretary of State and Peace Advisor).
From the beginning, this peace process was surrounded by controversy among social sectors that attacked it as a sign of weakness of the government. The parties used contentious tactics in and outside of the table. Heavy bargaining and increased fighting in the countryside slowed and complicated the process. The choosing of a location was one of the first impasses. While the government insisted on a neutral country, the CGSB wanted to talk in their traditional guerrilla stronghold of "La Uribe". The intervention of the Church did not move the parties from their positions. Then, three representatives of the CGSB asked for political asylum in the Venenzuelan Embasy. This action moved the parties to accept Caracas as the location for the first round of negotiations.
Caracas: June to November 1991.
The parties were represented by Humberto de la Calle for the government and Alfonso Cano for the CGSB, the institution coordinating the efforts of the FARC, ELN and a dissident sector of EPL. The insurgency insisted on opening the process to a discussion of the social and political conditions of the conflict, not only the demobilization. They wanted to go to the "National Assembly" to present their viewpoint. The government refused.
Nevertheless the two representatives agreed on a 10 point agenda that included: Formula for cease-fire and hostilities; paramilitaries; impunity and the doctrine of National Security; human rights and ethnic minorities; state, democracy and political system; national sovereignty and the use of natural resources; democratization of national economy and politics; overcoming the armed conflict and guaranteeing the exercise of politics; neutrals in the process; and procedures and methodology.(28)
The parties could not agree about a procedure for a cease-fire. While the government insisted on designated areas of 'distention' the CGSB wanted to keep their mobility. By the third meeting, the parties were closer on the issue. The government presented a list of 60 "neutral" sites while the CGSB asked for 96, each one composed of at least two towns. Again, heavy bargaining characterized the negotiations and during the recesses the armies escalated the conflict further. As stated by Garcia (1992):
"Both parties tried to show strength in their positions in front of the public opinion and therefore gain influence at the negotiation table."(29)
By the third meeting the government representative made a threatening unilateral commitment: if the guerrillas insisted on terrorist actions against the civil population, the conversations were going to be suspended. Given the anarchy reigning in some parts of the country, a terrorist attack attributed to the guerrilla was very likely to happen. That circumstance came when the ex-president of the Senate was attacked in the mountains of the state of Cauca. The government left the table of negotiations and the CGSM declared the lack of commitment of the government arguing that other past events against them did not cause the break of the negotiations.
After five months of public recriminations and bargaining between the government and the guerrilla, the environment for the peace process in Colombia deteriorated dramatically. A columnist called the peace process "a nameless joke".
Only marginal agreements were achieved in Caracas among them the presence of international and national witnesses, the supervision by a third party of any eventual pact and the issuance of a daily communication to the press. As Garcia states, at this point became clear that the bargaining was more a show of force than an instrument of peace:
"Most of the discrepancies are connected with the logic of the war: paramilitaries, kidnappings, and localization of the guerrilla, presence of the armed forces. And it was so because in a veiled way both parties are betting for the war. Thus there is a mutual resistance to yielding on themes that might affect their respective 'military strength'."(30)
Tlaxcala - March to June 1992
After the failure of the Caracas rounds, some of the most important commercial and industrial associations of the country were against continuing the negotiation with the insurgency. Despite the opposition the two parties agreed to a new round of negotiations in Mexico. The government appointed a new negotiator, Horacio Serpa, who declared to the press that "we are not going to give everything in exchange of peace".(31) The CGSN ordered the suspension of attacks against military targets and the economy in order to create a favorable climate of negotiation. But on March 21, 1992 the death of a kidnapped ex-member of the cabinet Argemiro Duran, disrupted the negotiations. The government suspended negotiations and ordered the return of the commission. Only after the mediation of the Church, on April 21 the parties returned to the table. This time it was the guerrillas that asked for a recess. The second round of negotiations ended without any kind of agreement. After two years of mutual recriminations the second peace process with the FARC and the first with ELN was over.
Drug Cartels and Paramilitaries
In order to understand the complexity of the historic factors affecting the armed conflict in Colombia it is necessary to study the two other actors of the war: the drug cartels and the paramilitaries, as well as the relationship between them and the rest of the parties.
The Medellin cartel
The war against the Medellin cartel started on April of 1984 with the assassination of the justice cabinet secretary during Betancourt's government. The government decided to use the drug cartel's most feared tool: extradition to the United States. This unleashed a war between the government and the Medellin cartel that survived during the governments of Virgilio Barco and Cesar Gaviria and peaked during the 1989 presidential campaign. The years between 1989-1993 were a nightmare of indiscriminate bombs and killings. Pablo Escobar and Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha led the wave of terrorism. Judges and magistrates, police, high-ranking functionaries and innocent bystanders were assassinated, as drug traffickers attempt to force the State to reverse its position allowing for extradition to the US of arrested drug traffickers and influence the political processes. They eventually succeeded in 1991 when the "National Assembly" introduced a provision forbidding the extradition of Colombians. Only then, Pablo Escobar initiated contacts to turn himself in. On his own terms. He was going to stay in one of his proprieties with several of his bodyguards. A well-known priest (fray Garcia Herreros) facilitated the negotiation. Pablo Escobar went into his self-made jail in the mountains of Antioquia. But, then when the government decided that he was still running the cartel from his 'jail' a move to a state penitentiary was decided. Pablo Escobar escaped with his bodyguards. The manhunt that followed lasted two years and ended with the killing of Escobar in Medellin. The rest of the cartel members were already dead, captured or surrendered to the authorities.
The Relationship between drug dealers, paramilitaries and guerrilla
Both the guerrilla and the drug dealers have used each other for their own purposes. In regions of the country where drug crops and drug processing are the main economic activities, the insurgency taxes and protects them. "The phenomenon of the narc-guerrillas is the result of collaboration between the guerrilla organizations and the narcotics traffic, in an alliance that in practice became a strategy to subvert order and further particular illicit interests, while mutually guaranteeing their survival." (32)
On the other hand a complicated history of vengeance and ideological contradictions kept the guerrilla and the cartels in opposite sides of the conflict. For example, the Medellin Cartel attacked the M-19 during the 1980's for the kidnapping of some of the drug-lords family members, only to make peace with them later. But some drug-lords like Gonzalo Rodriguez and Carlos Castano were also anticommunist that financed and directed the paramilitary war against the guerrillas. In regions such as Magdalena Medio, Córdoba, Cesar and Sucre, paramilitary groups fight with the guerrilla for the control of the territory in areas where they act as quasi-states. The drug lords often finance these paramilitary forces. Many massacres of the 1990's can be linked to the fierce territorial competition between these two irregular armies.
That does not mean that all paramilitaries are financed by drug money. In other areas of conflict, especially in Antioquia in the heart of the coffee-growing region, and in El Meta, new "Security Cooperatives" (known as Convivir) were created, which have institutional backing from landowners and the local commerce and industry. These cooperatives are the "legal side" of the paramilitary phenomena.
All these factors complicate the picture of the armed conflict even further. The different agendas of the parties, the different factions among each party, makes very difficult even to think clearly about it.
1994-1998
In 1994 Ernesto Samper, the liberal candidate was elected president. Samper had peace among his central policies. But his political influence was weakened by the scandal regarding the finance of his presidential campaign with money from the Cali's cartel. During the last four years, the insurgency and the army changed some of their military strategies becoming much more aggressive.
The army's attack of Casa Verde (the central command of the FARC-EP) during Gaviria's Government, and other important operations aimed against the group have failed to capture its leaders. These advances have been reciprocated by the guerrilla with the attack and destruction of the army's jungle post, the retention of the soldiers captured during these combats and the negotiation of their liberation in order to get political and strategic concessions from the government.
The confrontation -especially the dirty war between the paramilitaries and the guerrilla- is reaching alarming levels. Massacres and attacks are registered almost every week.
The open confrontation between armed guerrillas and government forces also increased. Earlier this year (1998) more than 300 FARC-EP guerrillas attacked a battalion of 100 soldiers of counterinsurgency in the Caguan and killed most of them. This battle was described as the worst defeat suffered by the army in the 30 years of the conflict and has created a sense of victory among the insurgency.
In August 6, 1998 the guerrilla gave Samper a bloody farewell attacking simultaneously in 65 military bases and urban posts. The result is hundreds of soldiers, guerrillas and civilian dead, injured or taken as prisoners of war.
In August 16, 1998 a fierce battle between the army and FARC guerrillas in the limits of the states of Choco and Antioquia left more than 100 dead between soldiers and guerrilla fighters.
The second peace process with the ELN
Although the guerrilla has publicly rejected Samper's government as immoral and is showing its military power in front of a weakened adversary, two persons in the government team have kept official and unofficial contact with representatives of the insurgency. They are Jose Noe Rios and Daniel Garcia Pena. Their report to the president in September 1997 is a clear document that measures the actual conditions for a peace process in Colombia. (33) In it the authors analyze common concerns of each party and make recommendations. This document is translated(34) in the appendix 1. But the most important efforts to design and build a solid peace process are coming from citizen-based initiatives. In 1996 the National Peace Commission (CCN) was created by the church and other representatives of the society, a group of citizens interested in a negotiated agreement between the parties in conflict. In October 1997 millions of Colombians used a special voting card to support the peace initiatives. This is known as "vote for peace". These efforts have not been fruitless.
During Samper's visit to Europe in February 1998, he visited Spain for what now is known as part of the signing of a pre-understanding for dialogues between the government and the international speakers for the ELN. This pre-understanding was kept secret until March 26, 1998 when one of the participants decided to tell the news to a Spanish journalist from ABC. The agreement between Jose Noe Rios and Daniel Garcia-Pena representing the government, Spanish functionaries of the chancellery and members of the CCN was the result of sixteen months of secret and painstaking work. The text of the document containing the Viana pact is translated(35) in appendix 2.
As a development of the Viana agreement, representatives of the civil society, the government and the guerrilla met in mid-July in Maintz, (Germany). The meeting concentrated on issues such as the humanization of the war, respect for civil population and a working framework for future meetings. The document containing the outcome of the meeting is translated(36) in appendix 3.
These two documents denote a clearer understanding of process issues and design of peace processes. Peace building requires a strategic design, a framework, and the identification of the gaps in the process and the development of a plan that provides sustainable peace constituencies. The CCN is a constituency for peace. During the three years since its creation, the peace process in Colombia has become a reality. These efforts must be complemented and reinforced at different levels of the society to create the required momentum for the success of the peace process. More important, the process must target the parties' perceptions, values and goals as a way to address the interaction behaviors, trying to modify them.
"Nothing is more practical than a good Theory"
Anonymous
The causes of the armed conflict in Colombia
Many believe that the causes of the internal conflicts are simple and straightforward(37). Paradigms containing simple explanations to the internal conflict have been developed at different times in Colombia.
Both the civil war of 1900 and 'The Violence' (1948-1959) are often explained as a struggle between the traditional parties, conservative and liberal, for the bureaucratic quotas of government.(38) Another straightforward explanation blames the violence on an alleged 'natural' disposition of Colombians toward violence. The Violence was perceived by many contemporaries and even many analysts as a necessary consequence of the "violent character of Colombians". This explanation is simple and easy to understand. It also provides a good excuse for inaction.
The actual conflict has not escaped from these kinds of paradigmatic explanations. For decades the existence of guerrillas in Colombia was explained using what could be named the cold war paradigm. This was the local application of 'external-systemic' theories developed by several sociologists in the sixties and seventies. Eisenstadt and Rokkan (1973), Paige (1968) and Skocpol (1979) concluded in their studies that domestic conflict, revolutionary crisis, or regime breakdown could be accounted for by looking into the pattern and structure of intrusion by international political, economic and military systems into the domestic realm. In Colombia, both sides have shared this conclusion, from opposing views.
For the insurgents, the imperialist intervention and support of the United States is one of the most important causes of the oligarchy's oppression. On the other side, the political and social elite viewed the insurgents as puppets of the Soviets, the Chinese or the Cubans.
The cold war ended but the guerrillas are now even bigger and stronger than thirteen years ago. A new paradigm had to replace the old one. Colombians found it in the participation of the guerrilla in illicit activities. Today, the subversive problem is perceived and explained by many politicians and scholars as a business issue. For example, many of the persons interviewed for this paper agreed that the subversion was today more a business than a valid political alternative. This paradigm explains the cruelty of the confrontation as a fight for the control and influence of geographical areas dedicated to grow and process cocaine and heroin in the mountains and forest of the country. Kidnapping and extortion are the other illicit activities that provide the guerrilla groups with resources. This new explanation can be called the illicit business paradigm. In one of the interviews, a highly ranked official of the government declared:
"The causes of violence can be reduced to the high profitability of multiple illicit business. All the rest has its roots in an economic problem. This is a fight over the control of illicit activities with incredible profit margins"(39)
The problem with paradigms is that most of the time they offer simplistic explanations to complex phenomena. They neglect the influence of other factors and the validity of alternative explanations. The political and moral biases of the paradigm remain unexplored. Serious scholars reject simple, straightforward explanation of internal conflict(40)
The roots of the conflict in Colombia are multiple and complex. In such a long, protracted struggle it has become very difficult to distinguish between causes and effects. Overtime instruments that originated as means have transformed into ends.
Nevertheless, it is essential to understand and highlight all the causes and elements of the conflict. The scholarly literature on internal conflict is massive. Most of it concentrates on objective factors affecting the conflict, such as the economic, political or social conditions. On the other hand, dispute resolution literature studies internal conflict from the perspective of the parties' perceptions, values, goals as well as the behaviors displayed as a result of these perceptions and values.
It is our opinion that the traditional study and analysis of the Colombian conflict has stressed the objective factors, overlooking the subjective and interactive elements of the problem. Therefore, although we include a study of the objective factors, our main purpose in this chapter is to highlight the less explored factors of the conflict: causes that can be traced to the perception and the dynamics of interaction between the parties. .
Objective conditions of the Colombian conflict
Brown, (41) is one of the authors that explains internal conflicts using mainly objective conditions. He suggests four main clusters: structural factors; political factors; economic/social factors; and cultural/perceptual factors. Other scholars and analysts have extensively looked into all of them using varied points of view. (42) Most scholars of violence in Colombia rely almost entirely on these conditions. The reason: they are easy to observe and measure. It just requires a visit to the slums of Bogota or Medellin to conclude that extreme conditions of poverty are a cruel reality in Colombia. Therefore, problems such as economic inequalities, the weakness of the state, discriminatory political institutions, elite politics, interventionism, etc are viewed as the root of the conflict. Following this line of thinking it is not difficult to conclude that the causes of the conflict are these objective conditions. During the following pages we will study some of them. The clusters of objective factors proposed by Brown include:
Structural Factors: state weakness and intrastate security concerns
The weakness of the Colombian State is one of the important causes of the conflict and its escalation. This weakness is the product of a myriad of causes such as the absence of state in many regions of the territory, the crisis of the judicial system, the endemic corruption and administrative incompetence. In the last four years this situation has deteriorated with the linking of the president (Ernesto Samper) and countless congressmen with money from the Cali drugs cartel as contributions to their political campaigns, a criminal proceeding know as the process 8,000. The scandal that followed the election of Samper as president in 1994 created a political confrontation between the government and its retractors, including the United States. After innumerable political manipulations the president was acquitted by a mostly liberal Congress, but the controversy and permanent oppositions left the government weakened and isolated.
A weakened Colombia government and its demoralized armed forces cannot provide for the safety of its citizens. Almost anyone can be kidnapped or killed in the streets. This has created an important security problem. Individuals and groups within the nation worry about whether other individuals or groups pose security threats, and feel compelled to provide for their own defense. Everyone tries to protect his life, his family and his property using any means available. As a result, intrastate security deteriorates further. Private justice replaces public justice. This security dilemma is at the bottom of the so called 'security cooperatives' (Convivir), which are legal private security forces operating in the countryside. The political controversy created around these cooperatives is based on different conception about the citizen's right to arm and defend collectively when the state has lost control over the public order.
Political Factors: interventionism, dependence, and elite politics.
Cold war strategies between the 1960's and the 1980's were also an important component of the Colombian conflict. The Cuban revolution inspired the creation of guerrillas such as the ELN or the M-19. They were trained and backed by the communists.(43) On the other side, the United States armed forces actively trained and supported their Colombian counterparts. Interventionism is still today an important factor of the conditions of the conflict. Although theoretically the economic and military aid that the United States gives to the Colombian government is dedicated to the fight against the drug trade, in reality the two 'wars' are the same one. The guerrillas participate actively in the drug business, therefore fighting the drug trade requires also attacking the guerrilla's interests. The distinction between the 'two wars' becomes a mere manipulation of words to avoid the internal political cost for the American government.
Another important factor of the Colombian conflict is related to its political system. Many argue that the prospects for conflict in a country depend to a significant degree on the type and fairness of its political system. (44) In Colombia, some groups are inadequately represented in the management of the government, the courts, the military, the police, political parties, and other state and political institutions. The legitimacy of the system as a whole has been called into question. Although the Constitution of 1991 included special circumscriptions for minorities in Congress, this are only initial steps that require a wider political commitment in order to increase the representation of minorities in decision-making organism at every level of the Colombian society.
Economic and social factors: economic crisis and discriminatory economic systems.
Economic crisis historically contributes to internal conflict. Colombia is not an exception. In the years before the civil war of 1900 the prices of Colombian products in the international markets fell dramatically. The liberals were mostly affected by this crisis, which created societal frustration that contributed to ignite the war. Today, the economic crisis is also important. Peasants came to the rain forest at the South of the country looking for a way out of the desperate poverty of the cities' slums. Here they work in the depth of the Colombian rain forest controlled by the guerrilla and have little alternative but to deforest the rain forest to grow coca. Other crops are not an alternative, due to the great distances to the markets, which increases their prices making them impracticable. This situation has been used by the guerrilla, which taxes the illicit crops and the use of the territory by drug smugglers. The guerrillas mostly do not grow or trade drugs. But they protect those who do, at a price. Growers pay $100 per hectare of coca, laboratories $100 per kilo of cocaine, traffickers' airstrips $18,000 per take-off."(45)The final result is a well-financed defiant guerrilla with enough firepower to escalate the war.
Unequal economic opportunities and access to resources such as land and capital, vast differences in standards of living are all signs of economic systems that disadvantaged members of society see as unfair and illegitimate.(46) All of the above symptoms are present in the Colombian reality. The income per-capita is extremely low and the distribution of resources unbalanced. Modernization and economic development were seen once as a solution to these problems. Indeed it aggravated the situation because economic growth benefited some groups and regions more than others, creating internal migration from the countryside to the cities. Migration added to the lack of planned development and restricted access to the land to create slums that surround all the most important cities of the country. Today these cities are logistical nightmares. By definition slum are totally unplanned which increases the cost of bringing public services to them.
Undoubtedly, a very important factor that has complicated further the situation in Colombia and is acting today as a very important obstacle, are the illegal activities developed by the guerrilla. The guerrilla has increased greatly its income thanks to activities such as kidnapping and extortion as well as logistical services provided to drug smugglers in areas controlled by them. Although these activities are not new -kidnapping, extortion and drugs smuggling were all part of the national landscape twenty years ago - their importance has increased exponentially. Kidnapping grew into an organized industry while the relations between the guerrillas and drug cartel is such that the term narc-guerrillas is used by the press, government officials and even scholars to describe the situation.(47)
These are only some of the objective conditions that constitute the frame in which the Colombian conflict is staged. As we said before, many scholars and actors of the conflict use them as exclusive causes of the conflict. This was most clear during the interviews developed as an informational tool for this paper and distributed among Colombian government officials, left-wing leaders and scholars.(48) We asked about the causes of the armed conflict, a diplomatic government official said that the principal cause was "the lack of presence of the State, failure in the administration of justice, and corruption". A guerrilla leader attributes the conflict to the "social inequities imposed by the Colombian oligarchy." Another government official saw the root of the problem in "the incredible profits of illicit business leading to an aggressive competition". A respected scholar identifies the causes in "the application of the law, corruption and problems with the administration of justice." A left wing activist declares that "the intervention of imperialism into the internal affairs of the country and the oligarchy's purposeful deceit of the working class " are at the heart of the problem.
A problem of using objective factors as sole causes of the conflict is that most of these conditions (such as weak states, corruption, socioeconomic inequities, political élites, etc) are shared with the rest of the Latin American and many third world countries. If poverty, inequality and social injustice are sole causes of social conflict, why other countries that share these circumstances, some of them even in worst economic conditions, are not at war? Confronted with this argument, many would argue that the drug trade is the objective factor that makes the difference of the Colombian case. But then we must remember that although Colombia's illicit activities are part of the present problem, they are relatively new and cannot explain prior instances of the conflict. They certainly cannot justify the 300,000 people that died in The Violence of the 1950's.
After a complete recounting of Colombia's history, we should recognize that the levels of cruelty developed during the peaks of the three civil wars couldn't be attributed entirely to the economic or even political inequalities. Something is missing in the analysis. We argue that the part of the analysis that has been overlooked is related to the psychosocial dynamics of the Colombian society and the conflict itself. The root of the conflict is in the way that the parties perceive and process information, interprets it and assume behaviors accordingly. These perceptions have developed into narratives filled with mutual recrimination, distorted perceptions and dispositional attributions. These narratives are the moral explanations that the individuals and groups have to excuse their actions, no matter how cruel and inhumane. They act as an excuse to escalate the conflict even further turning it into an autistic confrontation in which each party excludes the other from the moral boundaries in which the concepts of deserving a humane treatment apply.
The total absence of trust and the mutual recriminations and accusations that constitute the everyday life are products of this repeated pattern of escalated interaction.
Subjective and interactive causes of the Colombian conflict
These causes of conflict are not easily recognizable in the chaotic general picture of the conflict. They are largely constituted by intangible but very real phenomena like attitudes, perceptions, goals and narratives that manifest themselves in the parties behavior, their choosing of tactics, the reactions to the other tactics, etc. These repeated behaviors create patterns of conduct and interaction between the parties. These elements of the conflict are the least studied and misunderstood.
The parties' interpretation of the reasons' behind the contentious behavior of the other are often limited to dispositional attributions such as their hypocrisy or treacherousness. The situational and environmental factors or the dynamics of the conflict affecting the others' behavior are disregarded. Although some of the effects of these subjective factors such as the lack of trust are more easily identifiable by the analysis, the causes underlying that lack of trust are seldom studied.
As we said before, the fact that subjective factors are often left out of the analysis was a general feature of the interviews conducted among political personalities, intellectuals and scholars. Although all of them had a complex understanding of the objective causes of the problem, vast experience, and trained analytical minds, most of them failed to recognize the dynamic situational factors as part of the causes of the conflict.
In this chapter, we will try to study these subjective causes using concepts developed by the theory of conflict analysis and resolution.
Conflict: conditions, typology, reactions, tactics and consequences.
Conflicts and disputes
Although definitions of conflict abound in conflict resolution scholarly literature, for the purpose of this project we will use Rubin, Pruit and Kim's definition of conflict as "perceived divergence of interest, or a belief that the parties' current aspirations cannot be achieved simultaneously."(49)
Some authors(50) distinguish between disputes and conflicts. Disputes are differences about interests; choices and preferences found in all human relationship; while conflicts arise out of the frustration of basic human needs that cannot be compromised or suppressed. Therefore, disputes can be settled changing the parties' behavior; whereas conflicts must be resolved in a transformational process of the parties' attitudes. Normally, conflicts are simply "managed" through suppression, pressure tactics or partial settlement, but they keep coming back until a solution is found. The difference between conflict settlement and conflict management is at the heart of the problem-solving approach that will be explained and applied for the Colombian conflict in the next chapter.
How conflict becomes violent
The process from perceived divergence of interest to a violent escalated conflict follows a certain pattern. Once a party has perceived a divergence of interest, the party is predisposed to be influenced by a series of events of relative deprivation that trigger contentious tactics. This contentious tactics might include violent acts. This in turn produces in the other negative psychological effects that trigger his own violent contentious tactics, and escalates the conflict further. While the conflict escalates the parties will tend to limit their communication. This effect is known as autistic hostility. Once the conflict reaches high levels of contentiousness the perception of the parties are so distorted that they will see the other as undeserving of the most basic human rights, a situation known as moral exclusion. The escalation process is a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the perceptions and expectations of the party influence their attitudes towards the other and provokes the expected reaction. If the cycle is not broken by some kind of intervention this self-fulfilling prophecy will continue throughout the conflict's life and violence will become extreme.
At this point we will study in more detail each one of the conditions that form this pattern. Later we will study the kind of conflicts, their variables and finally the escalation processes themselves.
Conditions that encourage conflict
Events of Relative Deprivation
Conflict is often created or transformed into violent confrontation after a harsh experience in which one or both parties fail to achieve their aspirations. These special turning points of the parties' relationship are known as events of relative deprivation.
In the history of Colombia, several events of relative deprivation led to the formation of warring parties. Examples of events of relative deprivation abound in Colombian history. Some of the most important events of relative deprivation in Colombia are the banana massacre in the 1920's and Gaitan's assassination in the 1940's. More connected with the actual conflict are the government attack on Marquetalia in the 1960's, the guerrilla attack to the Canton Norte in the 1970's and to the Palace of Justice in the 1980's, the government attack on La Uribe and the guerrilla attack in El Caguan in the 1990's. Other events of relative deprivation can be found in the pain and frustration produced by the assassination of leaders such as Rafael Uribe, Jorge Gaitan, Luis Carlos Galan, Carlos Pizarro, Alvaro Gomez and countless others.
After an event of relative deprivation, initial perceptions of divergence of interest turn into dispositional attributions about the party blamed for the event. In time, each group creates a narrative to explain the events(51). The narrative of the guerrilla is that Gaitan was assassinated by the oligarchy when it became clear that he was going to win the presidential election of 1950. For them it is very clear that the political intolerance of the economic and political elite they call oligarchy is the cause of the conflict. Another event that is interpreted in the same manner by the insurgency is the perceived 'electoral fraud' on April 19, 1970. Many perceived that democracy was an illusion in Colombia. Also, the operation of government forces against Marquetalia was perceived as the declaration of war to the self-defense peasants groups that turned them into a mobile guerrilla. This same event was replicated almost thirty years later with the attack of the army to the central command of the FARC in Casa Verde. The Palace of Justice is another example. For the guerrillas, the attack on the palace was a way to show the world that they felt betrayed by President Betancourt's peace process. It was conceived as a 'judgement'.
The reading that the government and traditional sectors make of these events is very different. In this narrative, the assassination of Gaitan was the consequence of his own confrontational style that unraveled political violence. His assassin acted alone. They blame Gaitan for the violence of the 1950's. On the other hand, for the army the attack to Marquetalia and Casa Verde are just acts of a legitimate authority exercising acts of sovereignty in the national territory. And the attack of the guerrilla on the palace of justice was the act of cowards that shielded in civilians to coerce the government into negotiations. When the army recuperated the building, they were "defending democratic institutions."
Regardless of their point of view, both parties would agree on the importance of the events of April 9, 1948 the day Jorge Eliecer Gaitan was assassinated in the streets of Bogota. As stated recently by a columnist in the most important newspaper of Colombia:
"It was a tragedy impossible to tell, still unattended. Unforgettable, anyway; I don't know if curable. Those who suffered it will never forget it, because it was a deep wound, and worse, useless. It won't be easy to repair the disaster of that afternoon." (52)
Relative deprivation has two basic effects: "First, it alerts Party to the existence of incompatible interest. Second, the frustration and indignation associated with relative deprivation are a source of energy that increases the likelihood and vigor of coping activity. If Other is held responsible (i.e. blamed) for the Party's relative deprivation, this energy takes the form of anger, which is particularly likely to produce contentious action."(53)
For many theorists, episodes of relative deprivation are a sine qua non of conflict (Davies, 1962; Gurr, 1970; Kriesberg, 1982). Events of relative deprivation can become real turning points of relationship with the potential to transform latent conflicts into actual ones.
If the event of relative deprivation also frustrates basic human needs (elements necessary to the development of all people such as identity, dignity, security, equity, and participation in decisions that affect them and control over their destiny)(54); the episode can be perceived as fraternalistic deprivation.
The perception that one's group has been deprived has been identified empirically as a major source of intergroup conflict (Abeles, 1976; Walker & Mann, 1987), resulting often in the development of protracted social conflict and struggle groups. This happened historically in Colombia. Liberal and conservatives threatened each other's dignity, participation and security during the political hegemonies (1885-1930 conservatives and 1930-1946 liberals). During these periods, it was customary for the party in power to control the other's access to power, creating deep resentment. This mutual resentment and frustration finally exploded during the Violence of the 1950's. Entire towns were massacred by one of side or the other in a cold-blooded political cleansing. The rage and vengeance that followed the massacres was a source of energy that increased the vigor of the response, escalating and degrading the conflict even further.
Status Inconsistency and Invidious Comparisons
Conflict is also fostered by the development of groups' perception that the other party is of no greater merit, yet is afforded greater privilege. These invidious comparisons are likely to occur when there are multiple criteria for assessing people's merit or contributions, and some people's standards are higher and lower.
For the insurgency, Colombia's ruling class exploits the workers of the country. They call it 'oligarchy', a name that politicians used originally for corrupt politicians. Indeed, most of the insurgents' arguments are filled by this kind of comparisons:
"We have a political argument, that this country's oligarchy has been enriched by the suffering and sacrifice of the civil population. We, by revolutionary essence, confront this situation and don't share the extremes of opulent and poverty in our country."(55)
Weakening Normative Consensus
Societies and the groups within them are constantly developing rules to govern the behavior of their members. Broader and long-lasting rules are called norms. A major function of such rules is reducing the likelihood of conflict. Norms, and their application, specify the outcomes to which the parties are entitled. Conflict is likely to appear in circumstances in which normative consensus is weakened.
In Colombia normative consensus has weakened seriously both in the judicial and societal level. The Colombian justice system has been weakened gravely by politicization, corruption and inefficiency. This situation is worsened by the disintegration of long held social rules and moral principles. The clash of the so-called 'narc-culture' against Colombia's accepted social norms became an important factor of the actual crisis. The Colombian church has described it as the 'loss of moral values'. During the seventies and eighties, the drug-dealers' impressive financial success triggered a general competition for their money. At many levels of the Colombian society, drug dealers were exemplified as models of resourcefulness.
A normative crisis was created within the society. Until then, at least theoretically, hard work and individual effort were regarded as the way to gain economic and social mobility. The structural problems of lack of education, limited access to credit and the rigidity of land ownership, limited economic development and social mobility, creating frustration and resentment. With the arrival of these new 'entrepreneurs' of the drug trade the traditional values were challenged. Malice and violence became norms of this culture. Drug money permeated all levels of society and economy. With their economic success, came their interest in political control. This rupture was most clear in the 1994 President Samper presidential campaign, which received several million of dollars from the Cali cartel(56). The aggregated effects of an inefficient judicial system and weak social norms have been an important factor of a widespread crisis within the Colombian society and economy.
The guerrilla has use drug smuggling as a very important source of income. This situation contrasts with their traditional doctrines, showing also an important deterioration of 'revolutionary morals'. From the army's point of view, this makes guerrillas undistinguishable form mere armed bandits.
Zero-sum thinking
This is a condition that encourages conflict because parties believe that the gain of one is necessarily the loss of the other. Although many issues are distributive in nature, this is not always true. The common assumption that the pie is 'fixed' and cannot be increased by the parties -or anyone else- thus creating a competing mentality that increases conflict levels.
In Colombia, zero-sum mentality is very common. Influential political actors and guerrilla leaders see the armed conflict applying zero-sum thinking in which only complete victory is acceptable. This is most clear in the following newspaper article by a well-know columnist from Bogota, in which he criticizes the peace process:
"...peace cannot be begged, it must be conquered; the war must be won after negotiating peace; those who humiliate themselves to avoid war, end with the humiliation and the war; these inopportune armistices make the enemy stronger and weaken the capacity to fight; we are not in Nicaragua; in the middle of this conflict runs the white gold of cocaine; there is not on the horizon of the possible a true, stable and fecund peace with the bandits that have Colombia besieged and morally conquered."(57)
Typology, Issues and variables of conflict
The Colombian armed strife fit into conflict resolution theoretical developments such as Deutsch's classification of conflicts, issues and variables.
Morton Deutsch identified six types of conflicts: veridical, contingent, displaced, misattributed, latent and false conflict. Five types of issues: control over resources, preferences, values, beliefs and nature of the relationship. And seven variables: characteristic of the parties, prior relationship, nature of the issues, social environment, interest of audiences, strategies and tactics used and consequences of the conflict to each one.(58)
Ideology as a veridical conflict
In our case study, a veridical conflict exists between the parties' abstract political ideologies. The subversive's ideology is basically a communism project, with different political variables (Marxist-Leninist, Maoist and Cuban). Communism theory is based on the disappearance of market forces, state's control over private property and centralized planning of the economy. Colombia's government is, from an ideological point of view, a capitalism country with private property and market forces governing economic relations. Since these two ideologies cannot be applied at the same time there is a veridical conflict over dominance of particular ideological values (individualism or collectivism).
Analyzing conflict over values, Deutsch adds:
"It is not the differences in values per se that lead to conflict but rather the claim that one value should dominate or be applied generally, even by those who hold different values. Value conflict is most likely to occur when opposing values become implicated in legal or political action." (59)
Variables affecting this ideological issue are the interest of the audiences and the scope of the issue. Many Colombians feel 'insulted' merely by the insurgency communism project. Government officials perceive in the guerrillas' ideology project as "an anachronism, sadly useless and without a meaning of their characteristics, methods and style"(60). Others react angrily, feeling their status at risk. There is simply too much at stake for audiences to be receptive to reasons different to the ones that they feel protects their own interest.
This ideological confrontation is rooted in a problem of distributive justice of the country's social and economic institutions. Folger, Sheppard and Buttram (1995) identify three conditions necessary for the satisfactory operation of any society: sufficient economic productivity, adequate solidarity among its members, and the nurturing of those members to at least some minimal.(61) These conditions are related to the three levels of distributive justice identified by Deutsch: equity, equality and need.
The application of the three justice principles are necessary for the healthy development of social institution because they address basic individual and collective human needs: relative equality validates people's feeling of full-fledged membership in a cohesive unit, their identity. On the other hand, equity fosters the need to feel productive, deserving, able and successful. Finally, by attending to the basic needs of its weak members, society is providing for their human dignity.
In the following chart we relate these three elements (conditions, justice principles and human needs).(62)
| Conditions | Justice Principle | Human Needs |
| Productivity | Equity | Deserving, pride,
respect |
| Solidarity | Equality | Identity, group unity, membership |
| Nurturing | Need | Dignity |
When we study the conditions of distributive justice in Colombia we find ourselves with a country with extremely limited economic resources that cannot provide for the essential welfare of its citizens. The minimum wage cannot satisfy the basic needs of the average Colombian family. Health care services are very limited, covering only a small part of the population. Public entities of social security are in shambles due to the politicization of their payrolls. Unemployment welfare is an unattainable dream. Naturally, the most affected by this situation are the weakest members of the society. The streets of Bogota and other capital cities of the country are filled with "gamines" (children form the street) and indigents, as testimony of a society that turned its back on them. Need, as principle of distributive justice and human dignity are more distant aspirations of well-intended citizens than characteristic of the Colombian society as a whole.
Equality in Colombia is also limited. The country does not offer equal access to basic services for a large part of its population. Extreme inequalities in education, nutrition, health, job opportunities, access to housing and credit acts as a 'natural barrier' to economic and social mobility. This became more salient in the last fifty years with the disorganized migration from the countryside to the cities and the generation of slums around them. The distribution of society's economic resources between capital and labor is extremely unequal. Thanks to low salary levels, Colombia is competitive in labor-intensive crops in the international markets such as coffee and flowers. This perpetuates inequalities, because increasing salaries to workers of labor-intensive industries will take from them their comparative advantage. Not increasing them will deprive them from the resources to have access to education, health and housing. At this level, the international economic system act as perpetrator of inequalities.
Since the colony, a status system of classes has been a permanent sociological reality. The government is not an impartial controller of monopolistic forces and privileged interest. Economic monopolies controlling entire industries and sometimes several sectors of the country at the same time are not only legal but also arguably the biggest force controlling political decisions. Colombians perceive them as all-powerful: the real power behind the throne. These economic groups lobby and pressure the three branches of the state with such strength that equality becomes almost impossible in the Colombian society.
These limitations on the application of need and equality as societal principles create a difficult environment for its citizens. Market forces and basic survival instincts are the only rules respected. Everything has a price, even human life and liberty. Everything is on sale, especially consciences. In this brutal version of capitalism every one has to fight with vehemence and use any means available to defend its life or property. Life becomes a fight for survival without an arbitrator or regulation. Widespread corruption becomes the system, the way to do business. Only the ruthless survive in this environment.
The imbalance between the three distributive justice levels is used by the insurgency as their battle horse with the traditional name of 'social injustice'. The failure of the communism ideological framework did not diminish the subversives' deep-rooted desire for vengeance against the oligarchy. Without the communism model, the subversion has not offered a public coherent ideology. Agrarian reform and nationalization of the oil industry and other natural resources are among their demands. The reasons for the guerrillas' activities go beyond the search for social equality and include their own personal and organizational interest as well as hate and desire of vengeance. Human dignity and care for the weak members of society are not characteristics of their actions, either.
The conflict around ideology becomes therefore an intellectual construction that justifies violence, more a rhetoric exercise than a practical commitment. Both parties fail to understand and apply principles of distributive justice that recognize human dignity.
Paramilitaries and guerrilla against the civil society: a misattributed conflict
Following Deutsch's classification, we can say that the kidnappings, massacres and political cleansing against the population and local authorities are all part of a misattributed conflict. It is misattributed because the population and local authorities are not and cannot be parties of the armed conflict. A peasant in front of an armed soldier or guerrilla fighter does not have many alternatives but to "collaborate", no matter which convictions he may have. In the regions controlled by the guerrilla, they are the local state. Therefore, among the tactics used by paramilitaries, moving the local population out of the guerrilla territories is a strategy of war that tries to leave them without the logistical support. As clearly stated in the following report, this strategy of war is being used extensively in the last years of the conflict.
"Eight delegates representing some 5,000 displaced people, mainly refugees in the northeastern city of Barrancabermeja, said they were forced to leave their homes under threats from paramilitary groups who considered them guerrilla collaborators. Internal displacement is one of the main problems caused by the conflict, said Almudena Mazarraza, director of the UN High Commission for Refugees office in Colombia. Various reports state more than a million Colombians have been forced from their homes by war in the last decade."(63)
The problem of peasant's displacements affects hundreds of thousand of Colombian and aggravates the conditions of the country. Security concerns increase as well as social and economic needs that the Colombian State is in no position to address.
Once reviewed the psychosocial conditions that encourage the conflict, we can take a step forward and examine the different reactions to situations of perceived divergence of interests that can be adopted by the social actors.
Reactions to Conflict
The analysis of the parties' reaction to conflict and the strategies they use to deal with it is at the core of the dispute resolution field. One classification includes: Domination, Capitulation, Withdrawal, Inaction, Negotiation and Third Party intervention.(64) Another classification (65) includes fight responses (arrogance and engagement) and flight responses (denial, avoidance and accommodation).
Basically, all strategic reactions to conflict can be reduced to four categories composed of different tactics: (66)
Contending
Contending is to try to impose a solution, without regard of the other's interest using pressure tactics such as ingratiation, gamesmanship, guilt trips, persuasive arguments, preemptive actions, putdowns, positional commitments, and threats. Tactics that try to suppress the conflict by creating barriers to communication impose strict status systems or the removal of actual or potential leadership are 'indirect' contentious tactics that have been widely used in Colombia. The problem with too much suppression of social conflict is that, by preventing healthy change and learning, the social system is ossified and the latency is just translated to another generation. Contention as a strategic choice is linked to a win/lose mentality and the aggressor-defender model of escalation.
Yielding
This reaction consists of lowering one's own aspirations and settling for less than one would have liked. Yielding tactics include total capitulation, withdrawal or simply distributive negotiation. A lose/lose or win/lose mentality is related to this reaction.
Avoiding
Escaping the other, avoiding the issues or the simple choice of inaction are common reactions to conflict. It also includes 'indirect' tactics like the 'false cohesiveness' of creating new groups. Some parties are not interested in the conflict or may think that by ignoring it will go away, which can happen. But more often than not, conflict avoidance tactics increase the likelihood of later violent reactions
Problem Solving
This approach to conflict entails an effort to identify the issues and search for a creative solution that appeals and satisfies the interests of the parties. The party choosing this strategy maintains its own aspirations while trying to reconcile them with the other party.
Among problem solving tactics are: information exchange; trust building; cost cutting; adding issues, parties or resources; image protection; compensation; bridging of alternatives; logrolling or exchange of concessions and unlinking. All these tactics can be applied using processes such as principled or integrative negotiations and third party mediations, fact-finding, etc.
How do the parties choose between these reactions? A basic notion from the study of this choosing, called the "Dual Concern Model" (Rubin, Pruit and Kim) is represented in this chart:
| High | ||
| Concern about | Yielding | Problem Solving |
| Other's Outcome | Avoiding | Contending |
| Low | High | |
| Concern About | Own Outcome |
The horizontal axis represents the concern of the party about its own outcome, while the vertical shows the concern of the party for the Other's outcome.
As the figure shows, low concern about our own outcomes and high concern about the other encourages yielding; a party with low concern about both outcomes tends to avoid conflict. Problem solving is fostered by concerns about own and other's outcomes (this last concern can be genuine or instrumental -strategic- being aimed at helping the othe